Changelings have always been active in the area since records of such were kept but the first true “occupation” if the area that was to become the Cambridge Barony was in Norman times.
However the Diocese of Ely predates it as a Barony in Cambridgeshire which was settled by Blackbird Bishops and members of the Scarecrow Ministry.

Then in Tudor times a group of lost set up their own Barony taking after the University there they formed it as a College “Michaelhouse College”.
Their goal was not to educate young lost but to set up a centre of deeper learning for Changelings to concentrate their studies. However it did help some lost learn the ropes.

Over the many years between then and the Victorian period the barony slowly withered until it was barely a motley with a baronial title. But then as the town grew with the railway so the barony grew again too, rejuvenated but somewhat shifted in focus, it solidified over the Victorian era into a centre of learning and research.

It became a place where newer lost came and learnt how to survive and thrive under the guidance of the winter court.
Where Spring and Autumn undertook deep research into hedge herbology and the secrets of magic and tokens.
Where Summer hosted competitions to hone skills needed to fight the gentry and adventured deep into the hedge for Glory bringing back treasures.
Winter vetted these and his many away but others supplied the libraries and laboratories of the other courts.

The leading force behind the rejuvenation was a motley that came to Cambridge from elsewhere in the freehold when it was at its lowest Ebb. They took on the names of Colleges instead of their former names.
Over the years the motley went through many incarnations as people joined others left or died. Towards the period of the fall they were given to twist naming conventions Sidney was a female autumn Darkling , Trinity a male elemental summer courtier who liked bombs, Darwin liked doing crazy stunts etc.
And they tended to be very summer court focused with other court members as “support”.

(Nb other Motleys existed these were prominent in the history and to give an example motley)

Then Ten years ago, whilst everyone in the freehold if not country was focused on the cold war towards Bristol, one email was sent by Johns (a hunterheart (hound) from the colleges motley) to summer courtiers asking for assistance to arrest the Chancellor and three professors, nothing more – but then he was always a man of few words.
Half a day later the winter court of Ely receive a garbled phone call from a winter courtier from Cambridge saying refugees are inbound.
Ely moves to respond and picks up three winter courtiers who fled through the hedge along a trod one has one can’t talk, another stares into the distance and the last howls in anguish. All clarity is crushed for them but the bishops have tried over the years. Others have tried to discover what they encountered but to little avail.
As of 2015 only the second still lives, however the bishops are open to questions.

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Isles of Darkness is a UK-based roleplaying society that uses material originally created by White Wolf. This site, its contents and all associated materials concern games run by the society. Events described are not real, but are acted out as a form of improvisational theatre.